Design & Development: Magic Item Levels

[delericho]

I don't remember clearly, but weren't those items present in OD&D and AD&D? How could they be in the game without having the xmas effect?

Some of them were. If I recall correctly, the AD&D Ring of Protection didn't stack with armour (not 100% on that one). Also, 2nd Edition at least had a hard limit of -10 for PC armour classes, which tightly constrained the Christmas Tree Effect - no point in wearing a RoP when you already have Full Plate +5, a Shield +5, and a Dex bonus of +4 giving you that coveted -10 AC.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power and the Belts of Giant Strength were present, but I don't think the other stat boosters were present. Similarly, I don't remember the Cloak of Resistance or the Amulet of Natural Armour.

However, a large part of the difference was that 2nd Edition (at least) very explicitly did not allow the sale or purchase of magic items. As such, you couldn't go out and equip your character with a host of minor items in place of that one expensive item - you were reliant on the DM giving you the items to equip your character. However, I am very far from being convinced that that is actually better.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't remember clearly, but weren't those items present in OD&D and AD&D? How could they be in the game without having the xmas effect?

One more thing... the problem was still in 3.0, but at least the 3.5 revision made things worse by nerfing the durations of boost spells. It only made stat-boosting items even more attractive.

I have no familiarity with OD&D and AD&D so far, but here are a few guesses:

3rd edition was probably the first game to explicitely state how much wealth a character should have, and basicaly enforced this system with the Encounter/Challenge Rating mechanics. If you're a 10th level Fighter, you better have a +3 weapon and a Belt of Giant Strength +4, otherwise you will have serious trouble beating your level appropriate enemies.
I assume that the older editions, lacking such a tight CR and wealth by level system, didn't enforce this that much. THe DM had to eyeball combat and appropriate enemies anyway, so adding variable wealth into it didn't change much.
Furthermore, since the rules assume a certain wealth by level, DMs can feel forced to include a lot of magical items or even provide a magical item market in their game. (After all, by RAW, players seem entitled to it!)

Item prices in 3rd edition scaled quadratic with power. This enforced getting a lot of weaker items (filling all body slots with "bling") instead of a single powerful one.

If D&D 4 changes the quadratic increases in price and no longer assumes that PCs have a certain amount of items, there is no inherent need for these items any more.
PCs that have a lot of wealth will be more powerful then "expected", but maybe there will be guidelines on how to rule this. (Maybe a Level 10 weapon will be considered as a further level 10 character in the group. There is no indication so far that this actually will happen).
Without quadratic price increases but with less allowed stacking, characters might still want a powerful item, but they don't need dozens of them. Which also means that DMs will not feel forced to give them to them, which is also an important part.

There are still a lot of "if"s involved at this point, and I remain some skepticismn. I definitely need to see more on this.

 

[Imban]

Rings of Protection didn't stack with the magic part of magical armor, so you could wear a Ring of Protection +5 and Full Plate Mail, or Full Plate Mail +5 and no Ring of Protection, but you'd get no bonus out of Full Plate Mail +5 and a Ring of Protection +5.

Strength items typically replaced your Strength with their score, which was kinda cool for everyone who got to replace a Str of 15 with the 19 from Gauntlets of Ogre Power and kinda lousy for the guy who had an 18/00 and found Gauntlets of Ogre Power right away.

I'm also not sure about the hard limit at -10 for PC armor classes - even though it's harder than high ACs in 3e, my games always allowed below that, since it gave high-level characters the very rare opportunity to actually miss on something other than a 1. Not sure if I was house ruling or not, though.

 

[Wormwood]

Rings of Protection didn't stack with the magic part of magical armor, so you could wear a Ring of Protection +5 and Full Plate Mail, or Full Plate Mail +5 and no Ring of Protection, but you'd get no bonus out of Full Plate Mail +5 and a Ring of Protection +5.

Drastically reducing the ability of bonuses to stack would go a long way to solving the 'christmas tree' effect, wouldn't it?

 

[Imban]

Well, yes and no. There was still no reason to leave item slots open unless you didn't have a choice in the matter, so most 2e PCs were as loaded down with magic gear as your average 3e PC. It's just that, in the (usual) absence of "magic item shops", we didn't bother hawking everything but the "big six" to upgrade those.

After all, Dragon Scale Full Plate Mail +2 that grants immunity to fire damage and a Ring of Protection +5 go together nicely, even if the +5 overlaps the +2.

 

[delericho]

I'm also not sure about the hard limit at -10 for PC armor classes - even though it's harder than high ACs in 3e, my games always allowed below that, since it gave high-level characters the very rare opportunity to actually miss on something other than a 1. Not sure if I was house ruling or not, though.

I'm 99% sure about that one. I'm sure I read a section in the 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium discussing the fact that some of the more powerful dragons had ACs below -10, and commenting that they weren't bound by the same rules as PCs. Unfortunately, I don't have the books any longer (gave them to a younger brother), so I can't check it.

Drastically reducing the ability of bonuses to stack would go a long way to solving the 'christmas tree' effect, wouldn't it?

Perhaps. One of the big improvements with 3e was that they made the stacking rules clear and consistent. Unfortunately, they then married that up with a wide range of bonus types, and an insistence on adding more types as they went (especially for little +1 bonuses here and there). Cut the number of bonus types, and you cut down on the Christmas Tree effect, a little.

However, the 'big six' are the Magic Weapon, the Magic Armour (and/or Shield and/or Bracers of Armour), the Stat-booster, the Cloak of Resistance, the Ring of Protection and the Amulet of Natural Armour. Maybe throw in a couple of Skill-boosters there for good measure. With the exception of the armour, Am of Nat Armour and the RoP, there's no actual stacking going on - each of the items applies to a different thing.

I might be inclined to roll the CoR into the native Saving Throws of the classes, the Amulet and the RoP into a class-based Defense bonus, and give all characters a +2 to all stats at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20 (instead of +1 to one stat every 4 levels), and then elminate all but the weapons and armour entirely.

 

[helium3]

"More art than science" is an easy dodge. Most of the things we've historically been told are "more art than science" are the very things up on blocks for a major overhaul: CR. Encounter design. Class balance. Spell design. Etc.

Actually, there are a number of scientific disciplines that are still jokingly spoken of as being "more an art than a science." One that I'm personally familiar with is electrochemistry. It's actually more often referred to as a "black art" but that's besides the point.

My point is that most of the scientific disciplines that are described in this manner have the unifying characteristic of attempting to explain incredibly complex behavior that's not easily modeled by a handful of simple governing equations. Sure there are relationships you can use to approximate behavior, but they don't work over a large range of system variables and you have to know when they can and cannot be applied.

So, when a designer says that putting together the new rules for handling challenge rating, spell design, or class abilities is more of an art than a science, I believe it. D&D is an incredibly complex game and it's that complexity that makes it so nearly endlessly fun to play.

Now, to get back on topic . . .

After I read through the article a couple of thoughts occurred to me and I'm wondering if anyone else is interpreting it the way I am.

I know the designers have said they want to get rid of the christmas tree effect, or to at least trim it down to a christmas shrub.

As I understand it, the way magic items work in 3.X is that you need a number of magic items worth a total value of X gp, with the value of X being determined by the wealth per level table in the DMG. If characters have less than X, they're underpowered and if they have more than X they're overpowered.

From the article, it seems like the major purpose of magic items in 4E is going to be as a way for characters to gain abilities before those same abilities would kick in from class features. After all, almost the entire text of the article appears to be about why a given magic item is going to be too good for characters far below its level and redundant for characters far above its level.

If that ends up being the case, color me pleased about the revamp of magic items. Such a system would, in theory, make monty haulism less of a problem, give the DM a lot more wiggle room in placing treasure and making pricing magical items easier. Those are all good things by my estimation.

 

[Mercule]

I see one possible good (or even great) thing that could come out of this: Leveling up magic items.

I have heard a lot of people say that Weapons of Legacy was a great idea, but poorly implemented. Maybe this item level concept will include a fix. I don't know how that'd look, but I'd really love to see some sort of integrated mechanic that allowed the fighter to keep that +1 signature longsword he inherited from his father at first level and keep it meaningful for the duration of play, rather than having to hang that heirloom over the mantle by 5th level.

If items have levels, maybe the abilities available to an item can be placed in some sort of talent tree. That might not work for figurines of wondrous power, flying carpets, or most other "wondrous items", but it certainly seems like it'd work for "core" items like weapons, armor, and wizardly implements.

For a sword, say, every four levels, the "bonus" (+1, etc.) goes up by one automatically, just like a fighter's BAB scales. At the intervening even levels, the wielder or GM adds either an "ability" (flaming, holy, keen, etc.) or a "trait" (resistant to rust, faint glow, sounds when drawn, etc. -- no real impact). The pattern would be "bonus, trait, bonus, ability, bonus, trait, bonus, ability, bonus" or some such. Certain traits (like vorpal) would have a level prerequisite.

There may be requirements for specific materials, quests, etc. to unlock certain abilities.

 

[Cadfan]

There are four important things I see in this article.

1: Magic items have levels. This probably has little to no in game effect, but it is a LOT easier on the DM. Previously, a DM had two ways he could figure out if an item was appropriate for his characters. He could tap his vast DMing experience and make a judgment call, or if he didn't have vast DMing experience yet, he could look at the cost, cross reference the wealth by level table, and try to backwards engineer information about when the item should be available. Now he can just look at a number and know WOTCs view on the matter, which is a LOT easier on new DMs.

2: The level of a magic item is the determinant of its cost. Ok. I'm not sure this will majorly affect anyone's game, to be honest. Consumables are probably costed separately for reasons I'm sure we can all figure out.

3: +X weapons are in. This isn't a surprise to me. +X weapons are so classical that I can't imagine them not making it, even if I personally don't care either way.

4: Flying will be a lot harder. Good.

 

[BryonD]

Magic item selection for NPCs should be quicker. Instead of trying to spend 100,000gp on magic equipment, the DM just needs to pick 1 item of character level, 2 items of character level -1, or whatever the recommendation is.

That's it?